We have recently relocated and this in itself whilst being ‘fun’ has in particular provided a number of ‘opportunities’ as regards our broadband access mechanism.

Having been a BT customer for  many years our first thought was to continue using them as a broadband provider. Alas this was not possible since our ‘landlord’ didn’t want lines ‘over the property.   OK you might say, but just cancelling BT broadband was itself ‘interesting’ in that they see this as an opportunity to make money.  Not only is there a disconnection fee, but also since we paid in advance for line rental for a year they deem that any of the rental paid for the remaining part of the year is also lost. This latter cost can in itself amount to over £100 pounds.  So make a note to never pay in advance for BT services since if there is ever a need to cancel them then it is going to cost you more than you expect.

The intent was to instead make use of a cable connection.  Cable was laid to the property and all that was required was for the cable providers to come an make a connection. Sounds simple, but no, even here the cable providers fail to turn up and carry out the work, due to ‘a driver being ill’.   Strange that they only have one driver you might think, and you would not be alone. Here we are several weeks later and we are still waiting.

So we have ben forced to look at other alternatives. Many years ago we made use of a ‘wireless mobile broadband’ connection from BT.  This is effectively a dial up connection using a mobile instead of a modem.  It worked quite well but was very slow.  Dusting off the device and trying it didn’t work, mainly we suspect because if one does use a ‘mobile’ number in a period of time, often about six months the mobile number is effectively dead.   Not too surprised at this but it got us thinking and sure enough things have moved on.  Seems the current solution is ‘wireless hub’ which is a small device about a few inches square, into which one insets a mobile SIM card and once connected provides internet facilities for up to 10 devices.  These seem to be provided by most if not all of the mobile providers, and one contracts for a ‘data’ only SIM device.

There are a few things to consider.  First what is the likely usage of the data, and in particular how much data are you likely to use each month.  Often one is totally unsure of how much data would be viewed in a month, but one has to have a rough estimate, since if one exceeds the ‘monthly’ contracted usage, the use is either a) cut off for the rest of the month, or b) subject to an increased cost for the data used after the limit is exceeded.  Neither of which is a good outcome.

One contracts for a certain amount of data usage each month, and different providers have different set levels, such as 500Mb, 1Gb, 2Gb, 4Gb, 8Gb etc.   The cost is also somewhat variable between different providers.  An additional consideration is how satisfied the customers of each mobile provide are, and this alone is sufficient to eliminate a few of the possible suppliers.

Remembering our previous performance observation we were really only interested in using a 4G network. Those of you still using a portable phone on a 3G network will be aware of how slow surfing the web can be.  We selected a 30 day contract with EE for a 4G mobile SIM and so far we have been very happy with the result.  Performance wise it is faster then the fixed line speed we were used to seeing using our ‘old’ BT connection.  Cost wise, it is a little early to say, but since we are not paying for a ‘broadband connection on a fixed line’ this tends to offset tie cost a little, hence we are not really seeing a real difference per month.

Whether this is a solution for the long term, remains to be seen, but as a short term solution is is working well and should not be discounted if one ever sees oneself in a similar situation in the future.